finally made it to san juan at 00:00 this morning. i was supposed to be here at 11:00 but my plane was late coming iinto the shit hole that is miami. english is dead there. anyways. they overbooked the flights . i missed 3 flights. they put me on stand by . i got lucky and got a seat on the last flight out of MIA.

the customs officer wanted to take my tires from me. he asked me if they were new and how much they cost and what i was going to do with them. i told him they cost $50 and that i was going to put them on a bike i would be riding. "is this a problem?" anyways. ill pick up the xr in about an hour. change t5he tires and get a move on

Hot on the coasts, hot, rainy, dryish, coolish at night and at the highest elevations then warm,hot,rainy,dry,humid again. Point is you will ride through ever changing climates in CR. Plan on being moist most of the time.

ill be back in the states hopefully tomorrow night.
was an awesome solo-exploration of the country.
will post an in depth ride report as usual and have my
GPS tracks and video ready in a couple of weeks.

the 250 tornado is a great bike. air cooled with an oil-cooler and a sweet subframe. wish we could get them in the USA

My day started early. arrived at the birmingham alabama airport around 6:00. breakfast at the bar.

I Arrive at Miami International around 11:00 due to some sort of delay... i miss my connecting flight.... they put me on standby.... i cant get a seat on either of the next 2 flights.... i watch TV and see this----------

.....at this point i've been drinking "just a'lil bit" look to the guy next to me at the bar. I say..." fuck, thats a whole lot of toshibas and mitsubishis getting washed down the road"

I finally get to San Jose around 00:00. when i get to my hotel i notice that someone has stolen the heavy-duty rear tube out of my bag. here we go.

today ill be heading South East through the Mountains then on to the Peninsula de Osa.

At Thorsten's shop he and i get the tires off the bike. i brought a set of tires with me. he is very accommodating. I also asked for a front sprocket that was one tooth smaller. he called one of his guys who rode up and handed it over. I removed the stock sprocket and installed the new one..... after we mounted everything on the bike and tightened the chain we realized .. hey the new sprocket has the same number of teeth as the stock sprocket

there are plenty of Sugar Cane plantations around this area. i nearly tore my foot off while riding through this sugar cane field.

Sugar Cane Proccessing

heading into the mountains.

Abandoned

i like the rotting umbrella.

Tres Amigos

At this point my brain is still adjusting to my surroundings. Basically ive just landed in Costa Rica , jumped on a bike and aimed it at the jungle and mountains. Just following some "pre-planned routes" that ive programmed into my GPS unit using a mix of maps. some of the shit is there, some of it isnt. Im still getting used to this bike. I exchanged some of my dollars for Colones before leaving the airport. 500c roughly = 1 dollar. .. POP QUIZ !!! can you say 6570 in spanish ? The only people that ive interacted with are Thorsten, a Taxi Driver and 3 people at the Hotel. so, my senses are pinging. loving it.

jungle mountains

these guys were walking up the trail i was on

V I D E O

completely not paying attention to where im going. my eyes are looking at everything but
what is in front of me. funny funny.

there are PLENTY of water crossings here. some have bridges. MOST do not. its a blast. I can imagine what it would be like here in the rainy season. very very deep, fast and strong

I follow this river. Now is the dry season. this river must go Megatron in the wet season.

it has washed away sections of the road. wicked

this dam is friggin huuuuuge. no way to get it in a frame

the new church... right next to the old church

somewhere around here i ran over a puppy dog.
a couple of days later i didnt feel so bad about it. there are dead dogs all over the roads here. its like seeing dead squirrels on the roads in the USA.
Actually i started to enjoy seeing dead dogs in the roads. kind of entertaining. as i would approach the carcass i remember getting excited to see what breed it would be.

hey, when you ride solo ya' tend to go a little out of your head..

getting very close to pinensula de osa here. maybe on it already.
it was around here that i passed two naked native dudes walking on the side of the road looking up at the trees. when i rode by they didnt care. very cool.

I was in Costa Rica during that time. Some of my friends moved to Atenas and I went to check on them. I plan on going back next winter and renting a bike. The riding looks like a lot of fun. Was that you crossing the yellow line up the hill in the curve?

Never exchange more than $20 bucks at the airport, its a bad exchange rate. The banks in larger cities are kinda fun, they search you, make you take off your hat, put you in a room full of chairs. I suggest going to the small banks, don't go in without your passport or you get sent back to square one
I had some dog treats with me for my trip and the damn dogs looked at me like I was loco when I tryed to give them any:huh Oh well, lesson learned.
Got any video of San Jose traffic?
Loved the bridge videoI wish I would of had a video when I followed a gravel truck thru a very deep/large boulder water crossing. So glad my I didn't swamp the engine.

while i was having breakfast i showed my map to 3 different people that were working at Rancho Corcovado. I asked them all "does this road exist?" One of them (the cook) didn't know where the road was, one thought he had heard of the road but it was only for backpackers (a hiking trail), the third (the manager) knew of the road but it was only passable with an ATV.... whats funny is that
I used this road to get to Rancho Corcovado & I was going to use the same road to leave corcovado. it is 1 of the 2 roads that Access Corcovado ! Jeez !

so, as always, its better to trust your instincts.

V I D E O

i stopped to get gas from a quicky mart . check out the load the other moto - guy is strapping to his bike

The roads here are amazing. twisty , gnarled, wadded up things with no guard rails or anything else to obstruct a riders view of the world.

the potholes are also worth noting:

I am absolutely certain that for each pothole that is filled and smoothed over in birmingham alabama , 2 potholes.. that are 3 times the size and 3 times the depth of those filled in alabama are instantly brought into existence somewhere in Costa Rica.

Lots of these kind of Palms around here. I think they are farmed for their fronds.

Nice lane splitting, you ever try the sidewalk or drainage ditch? They are kinda fun when all else fails. I love the mountain road driving, less traffic than there are signs telling you where the F you are headed. Went down one "road" for at least 30 minutes and it ended at a closed gate. I hate going back. Well I guess it didn't suck all that much
Looking forward to the Nicoya report, I spent one night in Montezuma(raggae) and 2 in Santa Teresa(surf's up dude)

and like that i was headed to Paquera. the ferry is awesome. two levels. bottom level is a garage type. filled with cars. I talked with a few Ex-Pats that were now living where i was going. everyone is very easy going. I wandered around the parking deck for a while until i was spotted by a guard who told me i must go up stairs with all the other passengers there was some old yankee lady that wouldnt shut the fuck up.

the doubt had begun to creep in while on my way to the ferry. my front tire had "cupped" and chipped very badly. the center knobs were basically gone from all this.

here is a shot of what my front tire looked like after i came off the ferry

I decided that I would flip the tire. you know, turn it around. even out the cupping.... for some reason this this er... sounded REASONABLE at the time. so i flipped it and carried on. the worry went down however the doubt still existed

There are so many water crossings in Costa Rica. very fun stuff. keeps it interesting. most of the time where you enter the water is not where you exit the water.

i decided to follow a dump truck into the jungle. it turned off down into a dry river bed where there was a shovel loader hefting boulders into another dumper truck.

the " dirt road" went away.

i passed a couple local guys with machetes who gave me the "you are trespassing" stare. ... then i passed a big wooden sign that i couldnt read ... because i was going to fast.

trail started to look like this:

this all first gear up-hill. i only uploaded half of this hill. it starts in a creek and goes all the way to the top of the mountain. front wheel size ruts , big boulders , downed trees. very fun stuff.

This is one of my favorites. in the center of the photo, next to the bike you can see all those mountains. like steps. each one a different hue. a great reward for exploring the woods and taking the path less traveled.

i stopped at a little pizza joint near Playa Coyote called Treetop Pizza. Two guys run it. one is from Italy (Luca) and the other is from Quebec (Andre). Nice guys.

Andre asked me if i could speak french. "yea, i can say lesse le bon ton rulette" (let the good times roll) and "manger de nana" (eat the pussy) - the story behind the last one...... a french prostitute once uttered those words and pointed to here uglies . i respectfully declined.

one of the two Staple Costa Rican brews

Concerning the pizza. I was ravenous at this point.
this is what i wrote in my journal while the pizza was cooking: --

"Pizza ! is being shouted from down below. Oh my God this Pizza is going to rule my world with an Iron Stalin Fist!"

It was the best pizza i have ever had. I shit you not my brothers.

i had to take a picture of this older DT. sweet right !?

I decided to call it a day in Playa Carrillo. its a very relaxed little town on the coast